


Wondering in the Night

by Maidenjedi



Category: The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:55:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21931816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maidenjedi/pseuds/Maidenjedi
Summary: Midge and Lenny, and a game they play.
Relationships: Lenny Bruce (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel)/Miriam "Midge" Maisel
Comments: 7
Kudos: 104
Collections: Yuletide Madness 2019





	Wondering in the Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blithers](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blithers/gifts).



> "Something in your eyes was so inviting, something in your smile was so exciting...." - "Strangers in the Night," Frank Sinatra

“I’m not me.”

“You’re not you?”

“No. And you’re not you.”

“I’m…intrigued.”

“We’re different people.”

“Why, again?”

“Because it wouldn’t work. If it was us. If it was Midge Maisel and Lenny Bruce. But it might be okay, if it’s….Gracie Rickles and Frank Sussbaum.”

“Sussbaum? We gotta work on those names.”

-

“Whiskey, neat. And a, uh, gin and tonic for the lady.”

“Why, thank you.”

They sip their drinks, watch each other. He offers her a cigarette.

“What’s your name, beautiful?”

“Faye. Faye Cotton. And you are….”

“Tommy Meyers.”

They chat about the weather, the show they saw. He sidles up close to her and she puts her hand on his thigh under the table. 

They flirt, lightly, then seriously. 

“My place?”

“Do I look like that kinda girl?”

He’s the one with the mischievous sparkle now.

They don’t quite make it back to his hotel later that night.

-

They are Tammy and Ronnie, Yuval and Fanny. They try on personas, accents, ways of dressing. He buys a tie, on a whim, that Lenny Bruce would never be caught dead in. She toys with dying her hair again, leaves it. Does try a few different lipsticks and buys a dress that Midge Maisel never does wear.

-

“Midge….” He moans her name one night. 

She’d wanted him to, for a long damn time. Since the Gaslight, maybe before. 

But she couldn’t have everything.

“Shhh. It’s Hallie, remember?”

-

Lenny Bruce and Midge Maisel are always paired in the gossip columns.

They both believe they are being absolutely truthful when Susie confronts them, and they tell her it isn’t true, that Lenny and Midge aren’t a thing.

Judy and Jack, however. They had sex two nights ago, and it was mind-blowing.

-

“Do you like vodka, Nadia?”

“Of course, Mikhail.”

She wore a beret, and he may have kept it.

-

Midge stood at the window, arms crossed. Lenny came up behind her, held her close and buried his face in her hair.

“We can’t do this forever, you know.”

“We could.” Oh, he wanted to.

She turned in his arms and looked up at him. Locked her arms around his waist. She didn’t want to let go.

-

Gene and Edith held hands and said some words, one night in Vegas, both way pretending to be far drunker than they were. 

It was lucky they’d remembered to use the fake names.

-

“Lenny.”

“Yeah?”

She scrunched her nose, and he may have died a little inside.

“That was a practice run. You failed.”

He laughed and kissed her. “Did I, now?”

-

Years later, an interview. A comic whose name was never as well known as either of theirs, who didn't really know them but knew them, the way folks in show business know one another.

“Lenny and Midge? Nah, that wasn’t a thing. People used to say they saw them, out at night, at bars or restaurants, and they’d be flirting, all over each other, that kind of thing. But it wasn’t really a thing. It was a cover, you know, it kept everyone guessing.”

-

"I don't know what's real anymore."

"Me neither. Except...I know it's you. It's always been you."

"Kiss me. Me. Not Gene or Roger or Tony or...."

She did.


End file.
